The present disclosure herein relates to a treatment apparatus using proton and ultrasound and a method of treating cancer using the same, and more particularly, to a complex cancer treatment apparatus capable of treating and monitoring cancer and a method of treating cancer using the same.
Cancer treatment using proton can reduce a radiation dose that is unnecessary for normal tissues, so there are no sequalae after surgical procedures, when compared to typical radiation treatment. However, when a head and neck cancer recurs, it is difficult to treat the cancer by using the proton, and thus neutron treatment may be used instead of using the proton treatment. The neutron treatment uses a principle, in which, when an element (for example, boron) for catching the neutron is placed at a treatment region, beta rays or gamma rays, which are generated through the coupling between the element and the neutron, attack and destroy cancer tissue. When the neutron is used to treat the cancer, there may be several limitations. For example, since the neutron has no electric charge, it is difficult to control the neutron, unlike the proton. Also, the normal tissue may be easily exposed to the neutron, resulting in side effects.
Also, it is not easy to identify a dose or a depth profile of a particle beam through the proton treatment. When a dose distribution of the particle beam within the human body is not accurately identified, a treatment planning system may not accurately calculate a dose that would be exposed in the human body. Therefore, when the proton treatment is conducted, the treatment is performed with an additional margin for a planning target volume (PTV), taking into consideration of safety for patients.
Since a proton beam enters the human body as much as energy it has, transfers all the energy, and then is absorbed, it is impossible to predict an internal dose by measuring an exit dose and finding the distribution of the proton beam. At the beginning of the proton treatment, a positron emission tomography (PET) method was proposed, which measures a location at which pair annihilation of a positron occurs wherein the positron is produced by the interaction with an atom or a nucleus constituting the inside of the human body. However, since a half-life of a positron emitter produced by the nuclear reaction is long, it is inappropriate to check the distribution of the positron emitter in real time. Furthermore, there is little correlation between the dose distribution of the proton beam and a location at which the positron emitter is produced.